


gripping tight

by kiiouex



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Likes Ronan Really, Established Relationship, M/M, POV Second Person, Power Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6331846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re too tired for this. You study Ronan, the unkind blue of his eyes, all his restless, pointless anger. He’s either going to rot from the inside, or he’s going to bring it up like bile, burn holes in the floorboards. You learned to digest it. You think he should, too. The challenge he’s issued is pitifully transparent, a demand to either get out of his way or present a real obstacle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gripping tight

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly inspired by [these pictures by f0x-meets-w0lf](http://f0x-meets-w0lf.tumblr.com/post/140974192515) haha I didn't expect to be writing so much porn this year but! Here we are.
> 
> Thanks to [telekinesiskid](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing, she is stellar.

‘Manage Ronan,’ Gansey had said.

Well, Gansey had _said_ , ‘please keep an eye on Ronan while I’m away, you know how he gets,’ and then somehow segued into a long speech on how nice Blue had looked in her tights the other day, which you had forced yourself to tune out. What you think Gansey had _meant_ was ‘he’s liable to go out at night and wrap his car around a streetlight unless someone stops him, and you’re so good at stopping him.’

In reality you’re not as good as Gansey, not yet, not when Gansey has had so much more practice than you at catching Ronan at the edge of his terrible chasm and commanding him back. You’ve seen him use such easy words and such light touches to coax Ronan back to him, but it’s an acquired skill, one you’re still learning. The only advantage you hold over all Gansey’s experience is that Ronan seems to _want_ to listen to you. Gansey’s words are unbendable steel to him; yours are feather-light and impossibly desirable.

You think you know the answer to ‘why’, but it’s daunting, so you let it lie until the distant blue mountains have swallowed the sun. You need to go to Monmouth as soon as Henrietta’s day is over, before the empty night bites Ronan too hard, before he’s finished sulking in the empty space Gansey left behind – and Gansey can’t take Ronan to Washington, but god, it would be easier – before the acid in Ronan’s gut eats a hole through him.

The evening air is thick and warm, a tight embrace that you just have to push through. Classes felt longer without Gansey in them, you’re tired from work, you’re sore from hours straining up at the underside of a chassis, and you would rather see Blue or Noah or a Ronan capable of relaxing than one you have to _manage_.

You think about not going. You think about telling Gansey that Ronan is Ronan’s problem, and telling Ronan that he’s free to disappoint Gansey on his own, and then you think about a wreck of steel and bad impulse control, and you can’t. You cycle through the evening heat, you make it to Monmouth before the BMW’s out of the lot, and you try not to drag your feet up the steps to the apartment. He needs you for this, you know. You should be more eager to help him. You shouldn’t always be so consumed by your own exhaustion.

Knowing what you should be doesn’t really help.

Discordant music is rattling around Monmouth’s main room, Kavinsky’s kind of music, and you brace yourself for the evening to come. Ronan’s bent over the pool table, bottles lined up on one edge, but the balls have been replaced with dream things, glass spheres full of smoke that crack with every touch of the cue. You know already that the smoke should not be allowed to escape; you know already that Ronan’s going to play until every one of them is broken and their curling fogs are settled in his lungs. “Parrish,” he greets you, shooting a beautiful, radial fracture into one of the balls. “Here to keep me in line?”

“Yes,” you tell him, slumping forward to fold your arms on the other end of the pool table and resting your head atop them. Neither of you need a lie.

He scoffs, and there’s a hard clink of glass, one of the balls knocking against the wood just beneath your nose. A coil of black smoke escapes, damp gunpowder and burned skin, and you shove the ball away. It trails splinters of glass as it rolls. Ronan seems irritated, though you don’t care to guess which of the thousand possible sources is setting him off. “Because god forbid you _want_ to see me.”

You bury your head in the crook of your elbow. “I _want_ to go to sleep.”

“So go to sleep,” Ronan tells you, and there is nothing pleasant about his smile. “Take Gansey’s bed. Fuck, take mine. Have a nice, long nap.”

You’re too tired for this. You study Ronan, the unkind blue of his eyes, all his restless, pointless anger. He’s either going to rot from the inside, or he’s going to bring it up like bile, burn holes in the floorboards. You learned to digest it. You think he should, too. The challenge he’s issued is pitifully transparent, a demand to either get out of his way or present a real obstacle.

You’re too tired for this.

You tell him, “Get me a soda.”  He drops the cue and goes. You think, once again, of the irresistible gravity you seem to hold for him. The can he brings you is cold and you press it to the back of your neck, feel the condensation slide under your collar. Ronan lingers too close while you gulp down a cool, sugary mouthful, and try to marshal your thoughts. He looks like he’s waiting for you.

“You’re not going out tonight,” you tell him, and it’s not an instruction, it has none of Gansey’s political certainty. It’s something that’s going to be true because you need it to be. You force a lot of things to be true.

“What am I going to do instead?” His eyes are lidded, from frustration or anticipation or both. You don’t need to know. You think of the roiling venom in him, how badly he just wants to bite, and you’ve seen it yourself enough times, the weight of the night on his shoulders, every ounce of darkness pressing down until he puts his fist through a wall.

You’re not here to indulge him. You’re just here to keep him from destroying himself. Slowly, you right yourself, missing the pool table’s support as you unfold. Ronan keeps his head cocked, like he’s still trying to foist a challenge onto you, but there’s something burning underneath. He’s still standing so close; you reach out, to test how sharp his edges are. Your fingers slide along his jawbone, the tips still cool from the can, and his eyes ease shut. It’s the strangest magic you’ve ever seen. “We’re going to your room.”

He doesn’t protest. He doesn’t say anything, just crosses the room while you watch all the tension in his shoulders snared tight by his tattoo. Every single thing about him is tailored for danger, but you have never been afraid of Ronan Lynch.

His room is a predictable mess, and you ignore the mangled excess before it can grate on you. Ronan stops in front of his bed, and the look in his eyes is hazy and familiar, starting to charge something in you. He _needs_ this. He needs you. The knowledge loops around your head and your hands are back on him before you can resist, feeling the curve of his collarbone, his thrumming pulse, the impossible lightness of him. It’s unfair, how pale and soft his skin is. It makes you feel coarse by comparison, and even as he trails a hand up the back of your neck, you imagine how it must feel, roughened by the sun.

That’s not what you want to think about. You set your hands on his shoulders and press down, and it takes so little to make him respond, it takes so little and then he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring up at you with a look like you’re the only thing in the world he needs. It’s too open. It’s embarrassing. You run fingers along his jawline to make his eyes flutter closed and to make him stop.

Something about him before you, eyes closed, leaning into your hand makes your chest taut; something about the easy roll of his head, the way he exudes confidence and power and hands it all to you makes you warm between your legs. “You’re so weak,” you whisper, still marvelling, your fingers twitching on the impulse to tighten.

“Just for you, Parrish,” he murmurs. His mouth barely opened; you wonder if he actually said it aloud. It still makes your pulse quicken, it still plays over in your mind, and when you push him back he falls so easily for you. You play with the hem of his shirt, watch him watch you, and he’s not hiding a thing from you right now, all his reactions are out on display for you. You think _challenge_ again, and slide one hand up under his shirt, playing so lightly over his skin before you settle over his heart. When you stroke the side of his face, he sinks into your touch, and something in you shudders.

The edge of your exhaustion has rubbed away, and a familiar feeling is taking its place. Not quite hunger, not quite a need. Raw craving for something you could have, if you cared enough to take it. Your touch strays down to his waistband, and you catch his sigh, air from the deepest part of his lungs finally escaping. You rub your thumb over the very edge, teasing until he has to crack an eye open and see if you’re smirking at him. You’re not. You’re swallowing down all the heat in you, all your wonder that this is working, that he’s still _waiting_. Weak for you. A hot shiver runs through you, but you ignore it in favour of sliding Ronan out of his pants. He makes it so easy.

  You don’t give him much. You trail a finger up his length and watch his face, watch every little light go out in his head. He’s so pale, it’s easy to see the blood rising in his cheek, an aggressive flush, the same colour as his lips. Slowly, you shift your hand up from his collarbone, press a thumb against his lower lip, watch his mouth part for you. He’s always loved your hands. You feel loose and lazy as he tastes your fingers, and his mouth is so hot and wet against you, something in your core stirring, starting to tighten. There’s a shift, from you to him, with every hollow pull of his cheeks around your fingers. You take your hand back.

He gazes at you hazy, drunk on beer and dream smoke and you. You wonder what it’s like to need this. You think it’s probably preferable to telling yourself you don’t need anything at all. Without him asking, without him demanding anything at all, you shuck your own jeans, knees sinking in deep to the bed, between his legs. You should feel stupid, naked and hard, showing too much skin. Ronan’s hand grazes your hip like you’re something divine, and you feel like that instead. His lips are still parted, missing your hand, and you watch his airless exhalation as you press your slick fingers into him.

You can feel how hot your cheeks are burning beneath your freckles, your blood pulled off balance by a new tide, and Ronan’s pressing back against your hand, angling his hips up for more. You hear your own breaths, as heavy as his, and then you press a hand down on his hip, hard, to stop him from moving. He stares up at you, questioning, but you push in with your fingers, smooth and slow, at exactly the pace you want to move at. He lies back again, accepting, and the thrill of it shoots through you, has you biting your lip and struggling to hold your own tempo.

You didn’t expect to like it this much. You didn’t expect that when you pulled your fingers out, you’d wait for the empty, pleading cant of his hips before you continued. You didn’t expect that when you lined up against him, you’d be as hard as he is, slick and _wanting_ and able to take. You can almost see him unravel beneath you as you press in.

He’s so hot it feels like burning, like you’ll pull away scorched around the waist. But you don’t need more marks on you; you angle your hips and press down hard, pin him between you and the sheets until he’s gasping “Parrish,” and “Adam,” and “ _fuck_ ,” and nothing else, those three strung together as a litany. It’s your touch that burns him, incendiary fingers wrapped around his hips, searing up his sides, leaving a single charred thumbprint at the base of his throat, and he revels in it, arcs back, bares himself for more. You don’t think you’ve ever felt so powerful, and it throbs through you, intoxicating, as you stroke Ronan from the inside out and will him to come undone.

He does, lips wrapped around your name, hands fisted in the sheets, legs wrapped around your waist, pulling you deeper into him. He stares at you through his afterglow, whole face flushed and chest heaving, and he’s so _open_ , he’s so yours, it’s staggering. You feel the sweet, hazy pulse of your relief, and you sag against him, close enough for him to snare your breath, close enough that he could kiss you, if he wanted. You don’t expect him to. He does; he catches your mouth with his, a hand on the shorn hair at the back of your neck, fingers splayed out warm on your skin and tongue shifting softly against yours while you shiver out against him.

It’s easy to sense the difference, when you finally pull back. He’s sweated out all his restless energy and now he’s sprawled bonelessly over his bed, looking content in the way that usually makes you jealous. You feel it too, though, and collapse beside him, as tired as you were to start with but strangely lighter. “So,” you say, “not going out tonight?”

“Nah,” he murmurs, so shamelessly relaxed. “I’m good.”

You snort, and sink back into the sheets. You can manage Ronan until Gansey gets back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I'd love to know what you thought :V I also have a [tumblr](http://kiiouex.tumblr.com/)


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